Kelsey Buckles and Micah Ellis, a couple from Huntsville, are suing CooperSurgical, a Connecticut-based medical supply company specializing in fertility and women’s health.
“CooperSurgical’s failure either damaged or destroyed hundreds of individuals’ irreplaceable, precious genetic material – a completely devastating event for hopeful parents," said Tiseme Zegeye, a lawyer on the couple’s case.The Alabama couple is alleging that CooperSurgical failed to properly monitor its manufacturing process and did not properly test the faulty liquid “until after receiving numerous complaints from fertility clinics” that embryos were being “destroyed at elevated rates.
“Had the defendant immediately notified clinics regarding the defective , rather than waiting two weeks to issue a recall, the catastrophic failures at issue could have been avoided,” the lawsuit stated. The couple was notified a few months after the retrieval that half of their fertilized eggs were put in CooperSurgical’s media, causing them to become “destroyed, damaged, or rendered unusable,” the lawsuit states.